"Then I suppose I can reach him there by long distance," and Dundee lifted the telephone from Penny's desk to put in the call.
"What's happened?" Penny demanded, her brown eyes wide and startled.
"And hurry it up, will you, please?" Dundee urged the long distance operator before hanging up the receiver and answering Penny's question. "That's just the trouble—nothing's happened, and nothing is very likely to happen here. I'm determined to go to New York and work on this pesky case from that end—"
"Then you've come around to Captain Strawn's theory that it was a New York gunman?" Penny asked hopefully.
"Not by a jugful!... But what's the matter with you this morning, young woman? You're looking less like a new penny and more like one that has been too much in circulation."
"Thanks!" Penny retorted sarcastically; then she grinned wryly. "You are right, as a matter of fact. I was up too late last night—bridge at the Mileses'."
"Bridge!" Dundee ejaculated incredulously. "So the bridge party did take place, in spite of the society editor's discreet announcement yesterday that 'owing to the tragic death of Mrs. Selim, the regular every-other-Wednesday dinner-bridge of the Forsyte Alumnae Association will not be held this evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tracey Miles, as scheduled'."
"It wasn't a 'dinner-bridge' and it really wasn't intended to be a party," Penny corrected him. "It just sort of happened, and of all the ghastly evenings—"
"Tell me about it," Dundee suggested. "Knowing this town's telephone service as I do, I'll have plenty of time to listen, and you don't know how all-agog I am for inside gossip on Hamilton's upper crust."
"Idiot!" Penny flung at him scornfully. "You know society would bore you to death, but I don't think you would have been exactly bored last night, knowing, as I do, your opinion of Dexter Sprague."